It is known to cut product into pieces ready for packaging particularly in the food industry. Meat and cheese are typical of such products where relatively small pieces are required for the retail outlet whereas the raw material is only available in large pieces at the wholesale level.
Dedicated cutting machines provide a stream of cut pieces which must be packaged and in the case of meat it has become common practice to layer two or three or more pieces of cut meat on a preformed plastics or (foamed plastics) material tray and to then wrap the latter in a clear film material so that the product can be seen and inspected before purchase but is nevertheless kept airtight during storage and display.
Such a process is of particular application in the packaging of meat chops.
It is an object of the present invention to provide apparatus for use in a packaging line adapted to receive a stream of cut meat pieces typically chops and to lay the cut pieces of meat in a particular manner on a tray-like support ready for wrapping.
It is a further object of the invention to provide such apparatus which is capable of operating at relatively high speed so that a large quantity of such cut product can be handled each hour.
It is a further object of the invention to provide apparatus which can handle the output from two product cutting machines so that whilst one cutting apparatus is operating the other can be cleaned and reloaded.